Marginally better progress last week. I’m less ashamed. It doesn’t help that my schedule’s been jumbled all to hell lately, a trend that will continue this week. Even so, I’m sure I can do better than I have done.
I think I’m finally settled on the opening scene of “Gone Black.” Or at least, I’ve gotten to a point where my editor brain is no longer berating me for my utter incompetence. Maybe I’ve simply worn it out. Anyway, I’m moving on, in hopes that the bulk of the major reconstruction work is done.
Now I have to fix a secondary character, make her more multi-dimensional. She’s coming across rather one-note at this point, and she’s too important for that. I know what I plan to do with her, I’m just not at all sure that it will work. And then I have to revamp the ending. The timing is off, for one thing. For another, an important choice by my protagonist is getting short shrift at the moment, robbing the climax of resonance.
There are several other fixes, too, mostly minor, but enough to keep me busy. And given that I’ll be spending the weekend braving the wild waters of the mighty Niobrara River, I will most likely not be able to report completion of the draft come this time next week. But I hope to be somewhere within shouting distance of the end.
Write Club updates:
After 13 months and two follow ups, Cosmos has decided against “Fuel.” The story had been nixed for the magazine, but was being held for possible inclusion in a planned anthology. Unfortunately, said antho is, according to Fiction Editor Damien Broderick, “not exactly stalled, but is taking its time with no end on sight. Better luck elsewhere.”
Jetse at Interzone passed on “Ashes, Ashes,” but said he likes my writing, and invited me to submit again in November. Response time, about 5 weeks.
And a tier one rejection from an agent on a query for The Watermasters.
Oh, and that thing I cryptically mentioned last week? That went pretty well. It should bear fruit soon. I know y’all are waiting with bated breath. Call me the master of suspense.
